usefor-article-03 February 2000
[< Prev]
[TOC] [ Next >]
4.3.2. Body Conventions
A body is by default an uninterpreted sequence of octets for most of
the purposes of this standard. However, a Mime Content-Type header
may impose some structure or intended interpretation upon it, and may
also specify the character set in accordance with which the octets
are to be interpreted.
It is a common practice for followup agents to enable the
incorporation of the followed-up article (the "precursor") as a
quotation. This SHOULD be done by prefacing each line of the quoted
text (even if it is empty) with the character ">" (or perhaps with
"> " in the case of a previously unquoted line). This will result in
multiple levels of ">" when quoted content itself contains quoted
content, and it will also facilitate the automatic analysis of
articles.
NOTE: Posters should edit quoted context to trim it down to the
minimum necessary. However, followup agents SHOULD NOT attempt
to enforce this beyond issuing a warning (past attempts to do so
have been found to be notably counter-productive).
The followup agent SHOULD also precede the quoted content by an
"attribution line" (however, readers are warned not to assume that
they are accurate, especially within multiply nested quotations). The
following convention for such lines, whilst not mandated by this
standard, is intended to facilitate their automatic recognition and
processing by sophisticated reading agents. The attribution SHOULD
contain the name or the email address of the precursor's poster, as
in
Joe D. Bloggs <jdbloggs@foo.example> wrote:
or
Helmut Schmidt <helmut@bar.example> schrieb:
The attribution MAY contain also a single Newsgroup name (the one
from which the followup is being made), the precursor's Message-ID
and/or the precursor's Date and Time. Any of these that are present,
SHOULD precede the name and/or email address. However, the inclusion
or not of such fields SHOULD always be under the control of the
poster.
To enable this line, and the Message-ID and the Email address within
it, to be recognised (for example to enable suitable reading agents
to retrieve the precursor or email its poster by clicking on them),
the following conventions SHOULD be observed:
o The precursor's Message-ID SHOULD be enclosed within <...> or
<news:...>
o The precursor's poster's Email address SHOULD be enclosed within
<...>
o The various fields may be separated by arbitrary text and they
may be folded in the same way as headers, but attributions SHOULD
always be terminated by a ":" followed by CRLF.
Further examples:
On comp.foo in <1234@bar.example> on 24 Dec 1997 16:40:20 +0000,
Joe D. Bloggs <jdbloggs@bar.example> wrote:
Am 24. Dez 1997 schrieb Helmut Schmidt <helmut@bar.example>:
A "personal signature" is a short closing text automatically added to
the end of articles by posting agents, identifying the poster and
giving his network addresses, etc. If a poster or posting agent does
append such a signature to an article, it MUST be preceded with a
delimiter line containing (only) two hyphens (ASCII 45) followed by
one SP (ASCII 32). The signature is considered to extend from the
last occurrence of that delimiter up to the end of the article (or up
to the end of the part in the case of a multipart Mime body).
Followup agents, when incorporating quoted text from a precursor,
SHOULD NOT include the signature in the quotation. Posting agents
SHOULD discourage (at least with a warning) signatures of excessive
length (4 lines is a commonly accepted limit).
NOTE: It is undesirable to have more than one personal signature
in an article body (even though the rule above admits the
possibility by recognising only the last one). If, for some
reason, a second signature is considered necessary, it MAY be
preceded by a different delimiter (e.g. "--- ").
[That is Clive's suggestion. Not to be included without further
support.]
[< Prev]
[TOC] [ Next >]
#Diff to first older
--- ../s-o-1036/Body_Conventions.out June 1994
+++ ../usefor-article-03/Body_Conventions.out February 2000
@@ -1,171 +1,81 @@
4.3.2. Body Conventions
-Although body lines can in principle be very long (see sec-
-tion 4.6 for some discussion of length limits), posters
-SHOULD restrict body line lengths to circa 70-75 characters.
-On systems where text is conventionally stored with EOLs
-only at paragraph breaks and other "hard return" points,
-with software breaking lines as appropriate for display or
-manipulation, posting agents SHOULD insert EOLs as necessary
-so that posted articles comply with this restriction.
-
- NOTE: News originated in environments where line
- breaks in plain text files were supplied by the
- user, not the software. Be this good or bad, much
- reading-agent and posting-agent software assumes
- that news articles follow this convention, so it
- is often inconvenient to read or respond to arti-
- cles which violate it. The "70-75" number comes
- from the widespread use of display devices which
- are 80 columns wide, and the desire to leave a bit
- of margin for quoting etc. (see below).
-
-Reading agents confronted with body lines much longer than
-the available output-device width SHOULD break lines as
-appropriate. Posters are warned that such breaks may not
-occur exactly where the poster intends.
-
- NOTE: "As appropriate" would typically include
- breaking lines when supplying the text of an arti-
- cle to be quoted in a reply or followup, something
- that line-breaking reading agents often neglect to
- do now.
-
-INTERNET DRAFT to be NEWS sec. 4.3.2
-
-
-Although styles vary widely, for plain text it is usual to
-use no left margin, leave the right edge ragged, use a sin-
-gle empty line to separate paragraphs, and employ normal
-natural-language usage on matters such as upper/lowercase.
-(In particular, articles SHOULD not be written entirely in
-uppercase. In environments where posters have access only
-to uppercase, posting agents SHOULD translate it to lower-
-case.)
-
- NOTE: Most people find substantial bodies of text
- entirely in uppercase relatively hard to read,
- while all-lowercase text merely looks slightly
- odd. The common association of uppercase with
- strong emphasis adds to this.
-
-Tone of voice does not carry well in written text, and mis-
-understandings are common when sarcasm, parody, or exaggera-
-tion for humorous effect is attempted without explicit warn-
-ing. It has become conventional to use the sequence ":-)",
-which (on most output devices) resembles a rotated "smiley
-face" symbol, as a marker for text not meant to be taken
-literally, especially when humor is intended. This practice
-aids communication and averts unintended ill-will; posters
-are urged to use it. A variety of analogous sequences are
-used with less-standardized meanings [Sanderson].
-
-The order of arrival of news articles at a particular host
-depends somewhat on transmission paths, and occasionally
-articles are lost for various reasons. When responding to a
-previous article, posters SHOULD not assume that all readers
-understand the exact context. It is common to quote some of
-the previous article to establish context. This SHOULD be
-done by prefacing each quoted line (even if it is empty)
-with the character ">". This will result in multiple levels
-of ">" when quoted context itself contains quoted context.
-
- NOTE: It may seem superfluous to put a prefix on
- empty lines, but it simplifies implementation of
- functions such as "skip all quoted text" in read-
- ing agents.
-
-Readability is enhanced if quoted text and new text are sep-
-arated by an empty line.
-
-Posters SHOULD edit quoted context to trim it down to the
-minimum necessary. However, posting agents SHOULD not
-attempt to enforce this by imposing overly-simplistic rules
-like "no more than 50% of the lines should be quotes".
-
- NOTE: While encouraging trimming is desirable, the
- 50% rule imposed by some old posting agents is
- both inadequate and counterproductive. Posters do
- not respond to it by being more selective about
- quoting; they respond by padding short responses,
-
-INTERNET DRAFT to be NEWS sec. 4.3.2
-
-
- or by using different quoting styles to defeat
- automatic analysis. The former adds unnecessary
- noise and volume, while the latter also defeats
- more useful forms of automatic analysis that read-
- ing agents might wish to do.
-
- NOTE: At the very least, if a minimum-unquoted
- quota is being set, article bodies shorter than
- (say) 20 lines, or perhaps articles which exceed
- the quota by only a few lines, should be exempt.
- This avoids the ridiculous situation of complain-
- ing about a 5-line response to a 6-line quote.
-
- NOTE: A more subtle posting-agent rule, suggested
- for experimental use, is to reject articles that
- appear to contain quoted signatures (see below).
- This is almost certainly the result of a careless
- poster not bothering to trim down quoted context.
- Also, if a posting agent or followup agent pre-
- sents an article template to the poster for edit-
- ing, it really should take note of whether the
- poster actually made any changes, and refrain from
- posting an unmodified template.
-
-Some followup agents supply "attribution" lines for quoted
-context, indicating where it first appeared and under whose
-name. When multiple levels of quoting are present and
-quoted context is edited for brevity, "inner" attribution
-lines are not always retained. The editing process is also
-somewhat error-prone. Reading agents (and readers) are
-warned not to assume that attributions are accurate.
-
- UNRESOLVED ISSUE: Should a standard format for
- attribution lines be defined? There is already
- considerable diversity... but automatic news anal-
- ysis would be substantially aided by a standard
- convention.
-
-Early difficulties in inferring return addresses from arti-
-cle headers led to "signatures": short closing texts, auto-
-matically added to the end of articles by posting agents,
-identifying the poster and giving his network addresses etc.
-If a poster or posting agent does append a signature to an
-article, the signature SHOULD be preceded with a delimiter
-line containing (only) two hyphens (ASCII 45) followed by
-one blank (ASCII 32). Posting agents SHOULD limit the
-length of signatures, since verbose excess bordering on
-abuse is common if no restraint is imposed; 4 lines is a
-common limit.
-
- NOTE: While signatures are arguably a blemish,
- they are a well-understood convention, and convey-
- ing the same information in headers exposes it to
- mangling and makes it rather less conspicuous. A
-
-INTERNET DRAFT to be NEWS sec. 4.3.2
-
-
- standard delimiter line makes it possible for
- reading agents to handle signatures specially if
- desired. (This is unfortunately hampered by
- extensive misunderstanding of, and misuse of, the
- delimiter.)
-
- NOTE: The choice of delimiter is somewhat unfortu-
- nate, since it relies on preservation of trailing
- white space, but it is too well-established to
- change. There is work underway to define a more
- sophisticated signature scheme as part of MIME,
- and this will presumably supersede the current
- convention in due time.
-
- NOTE: Four 75-column lines of signature text is
- 300 characters, which is ample to convey name and
- mail-address information in all but the most
- bizarre situations.
+ A body is by default an uninterpreted sequence of octets for most of
+ the purposes of this standard. However, a Mime Content-Type header
+ may impose some structure or intended interpretation upon it, and may
+ also specify the character set in accordance with which the octets
+ are to be interpreted.
+
+ It is a common practice for followup agents to enable the
+ incorporation of the followed-up article (the "precursor") as a
+ quotation. This SHOULD be done by prefacing each line of the quoted
+ text (even if it is empty) with the character ">" (or perhaps with
+ "> " in the case of a previously unquoted line). This will result in
+ multiple levels of ">" when quoted content itself contains quoted
+ content, and it will also facilitate the automatic analysis of
+ articles.
+
+ NOTE: Posters should edit quoted context to trim it down to the
+ minimum necessary. However, followup agents SHOULD NOT attempt
+ to enforce this beyond issuing a warning (past attempts to do so
+ have been found to be notably counter-productive).
+
+ The followup agent SHOULD also precede the quoted content by an
+ "attribution line" (however, readers are warned not to assume that
+ they are accurate, especially within multiply nested quotations). The
+ following convention for such lines, whilst not mandated by this
+ standard, is intended to facilitate their automatic recognition and
+ processing by sophisticated reading agents. The attribution SHOULD
+ contain the name or the email address of the precursor's poster, as
+ in
+ Joe D. Bloggs <jdbloggs@foo.example> wrote:
+ or
+ Helmut Schmidt <helmut@bar.example> schrieb:
+
+ The attribution MAY contain also a single Newsgroup name (the one
+ from which the followup is being made), the precursor's Message-ID
+ and/or the precursor's Date and Time. Any of these that are present,
+ SHOULD precede the name and/or email address. However, the inclusion
+ or not of such fields SHOULD always be under the control of the
+ poster.
+
+ To enable this line, and the Message-ID and the Email address within
+ it, to be recognised (for example to enable suitable reading agents
+ to retrieve the precursor or email its poster by clicking on them),
+ the following conventions SHOULD be observed:
+ o The precursor's Message-ID SHOULD be enclosed within <...> or
+ <news:...>
+ o The precursor's poster's Email address SHOULD be enclosed within
+ <...>
+ o The various fields may be separated by arbitrary text and they
+ may be folded in the same way as headers, but attributions SHOULD
+ always be terminated by a ":" followed by CRLF.
+
+ Further examples:
+
+ On comp.foo in <1234@bar.example> on 24 Dec 1997 16:40:20 +0000,
+ Joe D. Bloggs <jdbloggs@bar.example> wrote:
+
+ Am 24. Dez 1997 schrieb Helmut Schmidt <helmut@bar.example>:
+
+ A "personal signature" is a short closing text automatically added to
+ the end of articles by posting agents, identifying the poster and
+ giving his network addresses, etc. If a poster or posting agent does
+ append such a signature to an article, it MUST be preceded with a
+ delimiter line containing (only) two hyphens (ASCII 45) followed by
+ one SP (ASCII 32). The signature is considered to extend from the
+ last occurrence of that delimiter up to the end of the article (or up
+ to the end of the part in the case of a multipart Mime body).
+ Followup agents, when incorporating quoted text from a precursor,
+ SHOULD NOT include the signature in the quotation. Posting agents
+ SHOULD discourage (at least with a warning) signatures of excessive
+ length (4 lines is a commonly accepted limit).
+
+ NOTE: It is undesirable to have more than one personal signature
+ in an article body (even though the rule above admits the
+ possibility by recognising only the last one). If, for some
+ reason, a second signature is considered necessary, it MAY be
+ preceded by a different delimiter (e.g. "--- ").
+[That is Clive's suggestion. Not to be included without further
+support.]